Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-05-30. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Update – injunction from last week has expired (2,438 bytes · 💬)

"The injunction included in last week's Signpost coverage" -- that's a very cryptic way to describe it. So cryptic, I was compelled to follow the link to understand what this was about. Turns out this refers to the "Preliminary injunction regarding pending changes and biographies of living persons", otherwise known as the latest chapter in the dispute over Pending changes. I suspect that the ArbCom seriously considered taking on this long-running dispute, took one look at the latest go-around, & grabbed the first excuse to drop the matter. (I'll stop here before I add my opinion about Pending changes.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:32, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you say, briefly, what each arbitration case is basically about? I mean, what is the basic dispute about? Thanks -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

See earlier reply. The regular readers need to come to some agreement on what they don't want (or in this case, want). Compare last year's coverage with this year's coverage - is that what you were after? Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

"how about [...] links to previous reports; or automatically hidden transcluded pages being previous case reports?" -- Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost#Only new info in arbitration reports? -- Jeandré, 2011-06-06t13:16z

Ah thank you for that (I think I was away at the time that was posted); for this week (starting 6 June) where the cases are in week 6, I included a link to week 1. Will look into this suggestion more over the next couple of months (and will at least trial the transclusion suggestion during that time). Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured content: Whipping fantasies, American–British naval rivalry, and a medieval mix of purity and eroticism (819 bytes · 💬)

Love the title of this article. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting and diverse assortment of featured content this week! I'm enjoying the reading. -- œ ^™ 05:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
"Rum, Sodomy and the Lash", indeed! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Collaboration with academia; world heritage; xkcd; eG8 summit; ISP subpoena; brief news (3,024 bytes · 💬)

sp "spefically" -- John of Reading (talk) 19:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks! You're welcome to make such small and obvious corrections yourself (even though more significant changes should normally be avoided after publication), see Wikipedia:Signpost/About. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure that's the right diff for Tedder's edits to Chris Hardwick? It seems like this would be more accurate... Tabercil (talk) 23:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks! Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I tried the "get to Philosophy" trick on Kevin Bacon and failed. Go figure. Powers ^T 13:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't capitalize the surname; seems it doesn't work without it. It might be double the amount of links, but it does get there! ;-) -- Menti fisto 12:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

No, what 'fixed' it is that someone removed the link to data storage device from the recording article. And I would bet money that was done because of the loop that link created. Any article that led to film or recording, including most actor and musician articles, would end up in that loop. Powers ^T 00:04, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Kevin Bacon > Golden Globe Award > Hollywood Foreign Press Association > Organization > Social group > Social sciences > List of academic disciplines > Academia > Community > Living > Life > Physical body > Psysics > Natural Science > Science > Knowledge > Fact > Information > Sequence > Mathematics > Quantity > Property (philosophy) > Modern philosophy > Philosophy (23 pages in between)

also, for your consideration:

Pornography > Sexual intercourse > Penis > Vertibrate > Subphylum > Taxonomic rank > Biological classification > Biologist > Scientist > System > Element > Mathematics > Quantity > Property (philosophy) > Modern philosophy > Philosophy (14 pages in between)

Don't know what conclusions to draw from those numbers. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: ArbCom referendum goes live; US National Archives residency; financial planning; brief news (2,793 bytes · 💬)

I'm surprised that the ongoing discussion about changing the RfB promotion threshold was not included here. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 20:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Point taken - anyone who would like to cover important RfCs (and other notable community discussions) on a regular basis in the Signpost is very welcome to do so, see also the sadly defunct "Discussion Report" section and this recent discussion. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

A link to a page explaining how to become a contributor to the Signpost might be helpful. Guy Macon (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, for starters, every Signpost article links to the suggestions page. On top of it, various way to get involved are explained (including adding a story directly into the upcoming issue). I just added another link there which might help people who are unsure in which Signpost section a particular topic might fit best. Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

New Signpost writers are most welcome. Tony (talk) 03:35, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Rennes panels

Another form of unwanted modification of one of the physical Wikipedia articles in Rennes, quite similar to what one might on the wiki: [1]

Seb35 has drafted another report about the event in Rennes (apparently unaware that the topic had already been covered here, but the draft may still interest some readers).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Erm, what's a "quadratic hole"? --Dweller (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

A square-shaped opening. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:09, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

What a strange way to put it. I've never heard the word "quadratic" without it being followed by the word "equation". Mutiplicities of benevolent gratitudes. --Dweller (talk) 08:36, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Wikimedia down for an hour; What is: Wikipedia Offline? (5,592 bytes · 💬)

"office action"? "legal request"???? Is that all the explanation we will get for the deletion of those images? --Orange Mike | Talk 19:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The logged onwiki deletions are "child porn" and "kiddie porn image". The files were both deleted in June 2006. Does that help? - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:08, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Downtime for the maintenance was well below a full hour. Also, planned maintenance does not count against the targeted downtime, as the targeted downtime is for unscheduled downtime (this is normal). That said, there have been a number of other outages that have put us past the 99.999% target, or even the 99.99% target. --Ryan Lane (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying Ryan. I'd never have guessed that was standard practice. Does the Foundation have a target for limiting scheduled downtime too, do you know? - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe we have any targets listed for this. Obviously the ops team would like to have no scheduled downtime, and we rarely do.--Ryan Lane (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

"In 2010, however, only 30% of the world had any access at all to the so-called "World Wide Web", even when the high rates of availability found in the developed world are allowed to skew the data" — what is that supposed to mean? It's the nature of an average to take both areas with high(er) and lower availability of Internet/WWW access into account. Areas with higher-than-average penetration rates aren't "skewing the data" any more than areas with a lower-than-average penetration rate are. Perhaps a "pure" average is not a good metric here, though. -- Schneelocke (talk) 12:28, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Skewness refers to the spread of data. Here, a small number of advanced economies with very high penetration rates drag up the mean, but would not have touched the median. 30% is the mean average, which is not altogether appropriate here, as (I think) you acknowledge. The "even when" was a warning that 30% is not a useful metric for some uses because it hides the fact that some countries have very high rates but most have very low rates. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 13:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
I read that as a statement of percentile threshold, not an average of anything. Perhaps they calculated it using a population weighted mean of availability rates by country, which would be an informative statistic, but then calling it an average would only characterize the method of derivation, not the nature of what the statistic purports to represent. The fraction of people who had access is not the same kind of thing as the mean amount of access each person had. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's my average: I took the sum of internet users and divided it by the size of the population. 30% of all the people in the world accessed the internet in 2010, that's the important point. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is the important point. It is not what is termed an "average", or measure of central tendency. If you calculated it yourself based on statistics in the cited source, it is a little misleading to cite that as the source of your conclusion. (Sorry if this seems like nitpicking. Unclear statistical writing is a pet peeve of mine because it is so widespread, even among professional writers. I highly recommend the book linked in my previous edit summary for all journalists (and encyclopedists) who use or report statistics. Despite the tongue-in-cheek title, it is very illuminating about what ought to be common sense but is commonly done wrong.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

To be fai, I don't even know why I used the word "average" in the first place...! Plain old "30% of the world" is more pithy anyway :P - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:01, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

More direct citations would be more useful. To dig up *where* in the Factbook this could be found would take a bit of searching. "In 2010, however, only 30% of the world had any access at all to the so-called "World Wide Web", even when the high rates of availability found in the developed world are allowed to skew the data (source: CIA World Factbook)."Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 17:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Country listing, under "World". - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject report: The Royal Railway (401 bytes · 💬)

Just to let you know, I've changed my username. I don't know if you want to change my quotes in the article to reflect this.—Optimist on the run (the admin formerly known as Tivedshambo) (ask me why) 09:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Updated. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:39, 30 May 2011 (UTC)